Telluride PhotosPhotos of Telluride Ski Area, Snowboarding, Hiking

I received an alert notification about about 5:30 MST from the San Miguel County automated emergency/alert noficiation system that there is currently a forest fire burning near Norwood Hill and that traffic was closed on 145 in both directions.   I’m not sure of the current status of the highway closure, but I can definitely see a red haze in the air although I can’t really smell very much up here in Ophir or in Telluride.

The winds have been steadily strong, so that doesn’t help matters.

I thought it might be a neat idea to take my new camera (Canon Powershot 890 IS) around town and take pictures of the Telluride Hotels in the town of Telluride and the Telluride Mountain Village.   This wont’ be any sort of official endorsement, but rather just a visual tour from an outsider.  Stay tuned …

The weather was a excellent today in Telluride for a change, quite possibly the best day of 2010 in terms of summer like weather at about 70 degrees and mostly sunny.   I’ve loaded Ophir, Telluride, Durango, Montrose, and Grand Junction as presets on the default weather app on my iTouch and have noticed that Ophirs temps have typically been 4-6 degrees cooler than Telluride; however, it’s important to remember that Ophir is about 1000 feet higher in elevation.

There seemed to be more visitors in town last weekend, and I suspect there will be even more before this weekend if the nice weather   holds!  Of course the following weekend is Memorial Day Weekend, which is traditionally when the Telluride Mountain Film Festival takes place.

One spot visitors frequently go to is the Telluride Historical Museum pictured below:

Although I’ve lived in the area since 1995, this is a building I’ve never been inside, but would be very interested one day.  Apparently, this building was built in 1886 as a hospital.  Since it’s at the base of town off of Tomboy road, I’ve always envisioned miners frantically scrambling down that hillside just above the building to bring the bad news of an injury at one of the mines in the high country.

Still.  Or at least yesterday was very nasty with snow and cold temps.  This morning looks to be fairly similar, but the old saying in Colorado mountain towns is to “wait 10 minutes and the weather may change”.   So, the cloud cover could very well burn off later this morning.  In fact, it’s always a great opportunity for a photo in Ophir as far as alpenglow occurrences looking out to the west on Sunshine Mountain in the midst of a breaking, yet looming cloud cover; or just as visually appealing, a western rainbow!

While not exactly a rainbow, the photo below (taken in October of 2008) is a similar sort of convergence of a view out to the west of Sunshine Mountain in the fall season after a mild dusting of snow left it’s trace on the still brightly colored aspen trees.  The elevation of the most prominently visual house in the foreground is about 9,800′  …. so, my guess is that the snowline started about 10,500′.

It has been roughly a month and half since the lifts stopped running at the Telluride Ski Area, but old man winter has been very reluctant to release his grip. I think if it were a “wise woman winter” instead, she’d be much more forgiving!

While many a local resident have taken some time off to travel to warmer climates such as Moab, UT or even more tropical destinations, those of us who’ve stayed have simply had to grin and bear it you want to simply hang outdoors (although there’s still plenty of backcountry skiiing and snowboarding opportunities). Here’s a shot of main street in Telluride in between waves of sleet/snow:

Aside from possibly work for some folks, one popular indoor activity is visiting such as visiting the Wilkinson Public Library In Telluride, pictured below:

I’ve finally been able to update a graphical meter which measures the time from the Winter Solstice to the Summer Solstice. Hopefully, with some spare time, I plan to update this to be much more robust.